Matt Kempner's Unofficial Business: Gladys Knight’s good name gets Trumped

During publicity events and interviews for his three Atlanta area restaurants, Shanga Hankerson often stayed quiet. He left the talking to his stage-presence mother, who agreed to lend her name to his business: Gladys Knight’s Chicken & Waffles.

Hankerson’s Fried & Battered wouldn’t have had the same ring.

But it’s probably more accurate after state authorities raided the operation recently.

Investigators say Hankerson failed to turn over to the state more than $650,000 in sales tax and income tax withholdings. The money was collected over the years from diners and employee paychecks. With penalties and fees, the total tops more than $1 million, according to the Georgia Department of Revenue.

That makes it one of the highest dollar cases of its kind brought in recent years by the state, said Josh Waites, the revenue department’s chief of special investigations.

There’s no evidence indicating Knight was involved in any wrongdoing, Waites told me. And Steve Sadow, an attorney for Hankerson on the criminal charges, said his client is not guilty of a crime.

I’m guessing this is not the twist Knight anticipated when her son from an earlier marriage pitched the idea of pairing the matriarch of “Midnight Train to Georgia” with the oddly fun union of chicken and waffles. (Knight first experienced that culinary combo years earlier at a popular New York restaurant.)

She wouldn’t have to put any money into the business, he said. More important, he apparently didn’t have to pay for her good name.

“He said, ‘I want to do this for you,’” Knight recalled in a promotional video that survives on YouTube.

Fragile reputations

Reputations are fragile creations. And lending out your name is fraught with risk. (Trump University, Trump University, Trump University.)

Knight, who apparently lives in Nevada, is in her 70s and still performing, with gigs lined up in at least eight states and two overseas countries this summer.

Her publicist issued a statement saying the singer “was not involved in any way with the operation of the restaurants” and that she is “sure that her son and his business partners will rectify the situation.”

But at least sporadically Knight kept tabs on her 39-year-old son’s business endeavors and how her name was being used.

In an undated publicity video, Knight talked up the restaurants and recounted how she told her son: “”I don’t care whose name is on the outside of a building. Once that gets them in there, it’s quality of food and service, service, service, service.”

“Did we not have that conversation?” she said in the video, with her son sitting beside her, his head bowed like a kid taught to be quiet while elders are talking.

“We had that conversation,” Hankerson replied, without looking up.

In another video, Knight described how she and her son and one of his cousins initially did all the cooking at the original restaurant and built its bar themselves because they didn’t have money.

The not having money part surprised me, but celebrity fortunes come and go. And fame doesn’t always result in fabulous wealth.

The restaurant came up during a one-episode reality TV show on Knight a few years ago. The Empress of Soul gave her son pointers on how to improve the collard greens.

“When she comes in the restaurant, it is a lot of pressure,” Hankerson said in the piece. “My mom is a perfectionist. I have to get her to sign off on everything because it has to be right.”

‘Up to her standards’

A promo for the show said Knight ensured “the tastes, atmosphere and even the back entrance are living up to her standards, which may prove to be an unreasonable task for her son because Gladys isn’t going to just settle.”

It’s easier to check the seasoning on your son’s greens than it is to know whether taxes are being properly remitted to authorities.

If you believe state revenue officials, the tax problem wasn’t a one-time or two time and nine-time slip up for Hankerson. They say the business was on more than two dozen payment plans, all of which it defaulted on.

Businesses that don’t turn over collected taxes put a burden on other taxpayers, of course. They also are at a financial advantage over competitors who follow the law.

We’ll see how this episode shakes out.

Courthouse records show Hankerson and his businesses have faced lots of complaints in the past from organizations trying to collect money. But Waites from the state revenue department said, “we believe the three restaurants are very viable, profitable businesses. Just poor decisions were made.”

He said he hopes Knight exercises some pull to get the tax money turned in.

“She is an icon in Georgia. I hope she will provide some counsel to her son and get him to do the right thing.”